Harsh words from MS about MS (MicroSoft)

[Felix The Assassin]

First topic of today's "Tech Update". WOW!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1979&tag=nl.e539

[Spirits Reborn]

Haha, that's pretty harsh. Guess they reaaaly don't like XP, huh

[wellard]

Not enough money to be had from XP anymore

XP has become the old windows 98 - it's going to take a lot of talking to get people to change from what is now a very stable platform. and lets face it for joe the plumber () what really is the point in changing during an economic downturn?

[SpiritWarrior]

Aye, why fix what ain't broken? Besides, there are a slew of games that still have vista problems. I am personally giving it at least another year before I consider.

[Ilander]

What games have Vista problems? Legacy ones?

I'm going to be honest here...the only problem I've had with Windows Vista was Hewlett Packard's fault---they deemed it not worth their time to write a driver for my girlfriend's printer.

That said, on a properly configured modern machine, it can actually be a pleasure to run. Our university had a program wherein students qualified for a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, and on my machine it ran very well, was much more aesthetically pleasing, and had several other smart features (like being faster with ftp downloads than XP, a great search feature that allowed you to find your programs quickly without digging through a crowded "All Programs" menu).

I could go on about why I liked it, and continue to, but, all that said, I had an overclocked Core 2 Duo system, and will soon have a Quad-Core Phenom system, with 3 and 4 GB RAM respectively. Vista runs well on my girlfriend's laptop (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo w/ 2GB RAM), but I wouldn't run it on much less.

Windows 7 looks nice enough that I may actually buy a retail copy of it, just so that I don't have to deal with all the hassle of an OEM copy...but, don't expect the moon.

All this said, Windows XP's days should be over. We need much smarter security built into our systems that don't require hours upon hours to configure and scan, only to discover all the items that slipped through the cracks.

Yep. I think that UAC is a good thing. The '7' UAC looks like it will be a bit better, but the Vista version is a good start.

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

I was just speaking with one of my customers about some of this yesterday.
XP is the best that MS has/had and if I am forced to go to one of the newer OS's, I would seriously look at one of their competitors.

I don't remember every buying my copies of Win XP Pro on a rental, or lease basis; so, I should be able to use it till I die, if I want to.

[Luvian]

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior Aye, why fix what ain't broken? Besides, there are a slew of games that still have vista problems. I am personally giving it at least another year before I consider.

In a year their new Windows OS will be about to come out and they'll want you to switch again. Might as well skip Vista entirely.

[MagiK]

Agree with Ilander here, When I built my new rig, I was seriously worried about game compatibility so made it dual boot, XP and Vista64, In the past 9 months I have booted into XP 4 times....to get some info for an app that does not work in vista....one app. And it isnt a vista issue its a really old app.

Vista seems to run everything I have including a hundred or more games, the only real issue I have had is when a driver will not work in the 64 bit environment, and that was only with an ancient printer.

[Bungleau]

It all depends on what you're running and whether or not it supports Vista (and vice versa).

My not-so-ancient HP all-in-one printer does not work properly on vanilla Vista. Some guy at Microsoft has a printer driver that will enable it to print duplex properly. Neither HP nor MS is formally providing that driver to the best of my knowledge. Since I've got a fix, I can live with it.

My contact management software, Act!, seems to be doing a lot of fighting with Vista. It doesn't sync properly to my cell phone unless I beat the snot out of it, sacrifice a small goat, bow to the east four times, and threaten the computer with bodily harm. I'm not sure all of those are needed, and they don't always work.

There are other issues where Symantec's support response is "Well, that doesn't work in Vista. Run it another way".

And those are with the two latest versions of Act!. No ancient stuff here.

Because of these issues, I'd rather be on XP. That said, a laptop is almost a disposable commodity to me, so rather than move this to XP, I'll end up waiting until I'm ready for the next machine and get something better then. Whatever that is...

[Larry_OHF]

As for me and my current status in life, this quote gives me some ease:

XP SP3 support isn’t going away until 2014.